Robin Williamson - Me and the mad girl lyrics

Words and music Robin Williamsson 1978

I learned in school

That I was mad if they were sane, you see

They had to beat me black and blue

They said it hurt them more than me

But I learned who were my enemies

and I learned who were my friends

I learned to read between the lines

When I was 10

I´d do anything to get out of school

Away from the teacher´s stick

To shoot streetlamps with my slingshot

Smoke cigarettes and get sick

Steal apples in September

Fight shadows in green June

Or just sit and smell the burning leaves

Of an autumns´s afternoon

Of an autumns´s afternoon

Once I met a mad girl

As she came hopping through the furze

Her clothes all stuck with fluff and stuff

Bearded barley and bristly burrs

and I was high among the branches green

and she, she hadn´t seen me there

As she went shuffling with her shadow

and snatching at the air

Wild weeds, wilting

Were twined all in her curls

and I could tell by her mad blue eyes

She was a mad girl

She was thin as any sparrow

Her song it had no tune

Just scuffling through the piney glades

Of a summer´s afternoon

Of a summer´s afternoon

I came dropping through the branches down

She started round in surprise and fear

I don´t know what I had to say

But something I knew she had to hear

She picked up a piece of flint

Drew back her arm and flung it high

Not a bad throw that cut my cheek

Just below the eye

Mad girl, mad girl

Before you ran away

I knew you were as mad as me

and as sane as a summer´s day

Mad girl, mad girl

We both were wrong again

You took me for an anemy

and I took you for a friend

I took you for a friend